


Hope's Peak Interlude

by teamchaosprez



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Established Relationship, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Multi, Pre-Canon, Secret Relationship, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-16 23:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13646970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamchaosprez/pseuds/teamchaosprez
Summary: Life before the Tragedy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically going to be a series of somewhat connected stories taking place pre-dr1? i just finished the first game onstream with my friend so i wanted to do something relating to it. apologies if anything is ooc.
> 
> also this first chapter is just kind of setting up a few of the relationships in the fic there'll be more detailed stuff later on

After about a week at Hope’s Peak, the terror of the classes and the strong pressure gave way a little bit. Makoto wasn’t sure what the turning point was exactly - maybe it was realizing that the teachers were a hell of a lot nicer and less militant than he had originally expected, maybe it was the way that his classmates were just normal teenagers and not terrifyingly brilliant adults in young bodies. Either way, he had found himself befriending a majority of his class and teachers, and the time when he couldn’t sleep because he was afraid of what the future would bring seemed like a distant, laughable memory.

The cafeteria was crowded, so Sayaka had suggested that they eat outside and enjoy the good weather while it was still warm enough outside. The rest of Class #78 had agreed happily, and so they sat on the grass, still within the view of the windows but much, much more peaceful than the chaos inside. Makoto sat between Kyoko and Sayaka, as Junko stood in the center of their circle going on a rather excessive rant about something - he had zoned out pretty quickly, more focused on the fact that all sixteen of them had become decently close in only a week, or at least close enough that even the introverted, shy, and anxious Toko had agreed to sit with them. 

“You know, you’ve been complaining nonstop for the last seventeen years, Junko.” Mukuro’s voice was dry, an eyebrow raised and a small, amused smirk on her face. It was only the sound of somebody besides Junko talking that ripped Makoto out of his thoughts, and that was only so that he could be ready for the argument that was about to break out between the twins. That was one thing he thought was odd, above all the other interesting characteristics of his classmates - the twins were constantly at odds with each other, but they seemed to not like being apart. Maybe that was because of Mukuro’s separation from her family to join Fenrir for a while; they didn’t want to do that again. “Maybe you could give somebody else a chance to talk sometime?”

An argument broke out almost immediately, Junko storming over to her sister with her hands on her hips and Mukuro keeping her face mostly stoic. They spoke over each other, the fashionista’s voice shrill and angry and her sister’s calm and dry. “Can you believe them?” Makoto asked, leaning over to Kyoko and hearing her chuckle ever so slightly next to him.

“As long as they aren’t killing anybody, I’m sure it’s fine,” Kyoko muttered in response, and when Makoto looked over at her she had a small smile on her face. He shrugged, though he was smiling as well, and turned his head to look back at the sisters - finding that Taka was trying very hard to get himself between them and cut off the argument, yelling something about the rules and keeping the peace. Mondo, meanwhile, was trying to drag his boyfriend out of this situation to no avail.

Makoto just moved so that he was sitting in a lotus position and watched the chaos unfold, happy to just witness everything happen.

* * *

 

It was three weeks into life at Hope’s Peak when Makoto noticed something weird going on with Toko. She had the flu, and every time she sneezed, she started acting… differently, with her tongue sticking out and her voice much more likely to be heard. Most of the time she was shy, prude, and quiet, but when that tongue was out, she became… well, the exact opposite. Then, when she would sneeze again, she would turn right back into herself, looking a little disoriented.

She deflected any questions about it, though, saying that she was just feeling a little weird because she was sick and she didn’t want anyone to worry about her. The day after she initially got the flu, she locked herself into her dorm, and refused to say anything to anybody - the only people she would open her door to at all, actually, were the twins, and Makoto had never seen them get along as they did while Toko was sick. When he asked why she was letting them in, Junko just shrugged and said something about understanding what she was going through - but that only made less sense, because everyone had gotten the flu at some point, so why only those two?

Both of the twins, though, seemed to have their lips sealed, but even after Toko got well the question bothered Makoto - and Kyoko only watched him talk about it with a knowing grin, like she was in on the secret too, and that was nothing short of frustrating. “What, she told you why she acts weird whenever she sneezes, too?” He asked in an annoyed tone, eyes narrowed at his friend, and she raised one gloved hand as if to command that he calm down.

“No, she didn’t tell me anything. I just figured it out myself.” Her words were calm and collected, before she folded her hands together and rested her elbows on the desk, putting her chin in her hands. “Or, at least, I have a theory. I probably shouldn’t say anything to you, though, because I don’t want to start any rumors that might turn out to be untrue. You can ask her yourself or come to your own conclusions.” 

He groaned, tempted for a second to pull his own hair out before he let out a heavy sigh. “She’s not going to say anything to me.”

“Maybe you should just let it rest, then, and let poor Toko go about her life. Odds are she feels pretty bad about whatever’s going on with her life to begin with.” Kyoko stood up from the desk then, picking up her notebook. “I’m going to go upstairs. I promised Hiro that I would help him study earlier. I’ll be in the garden if you need anything, alright?”

With that, she left the room, leaving Makoto more frustrated than he had been before.

* * *

 

Four weeks into life at Hope’s Peak, Makoto was walking past the pool on his way downstairs to the dorms when he spotted Sakura and Hina together at the edge of the water, sitting very close together. Their faces were hidden by Sakura’s endless sea of pale hair, but it was obvious without much thought that they were kissing. The first thought that crossed his mind was just to wonder why they were bothering trying to hide it - it was pretty obvious that the two of them were more than friends, considering they were practically attached at the hip and spent most nights in one another’s dorms.

He wasn’t sure why, but for a few moments, he just remained still for a few moments and watched the quiet, private moment unreeling before him. Makoto hesitated, and then turned in order to leave and find something else to do. After taking another glance back, though, he spotted Hina watching him quietly, and he suddenly felt his face turn bright red. He quickly walked out of the pool room, but before he could even get to the staircase downstairs, a hand on his shoulder stopped him from walking any further. Makoto froze, and turned to find Hina standing behind him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to catch you guys,” Makoto spoke quickly, putting his hands up in front of him and watching Hina’s face carefully. Her expression was more serious than he was used to, her lips folded into a frown and her dark blue eyes narrowed. He wasn’t used to seeing this kind of look from the swimmer - usually, she was so full of energy and so ready to make a joke. “Uh… Hina?”

“Look, I don’t really care that you saw. But you can’t say anything about this.” Her voice was serious, calm, cold, and her arms folded over her chest. “I’ll admit that we haven’t really been subtle, but Sakura’s family is… really traditional, if I can put it that way. They - they wouldn’t really be happy if they found out about us. She even has a fake boyfriend back home so that nobody gets suspicious.” She cleared her throat, and let go of Makoto’s shoulder, running a hand through her hair - down for once in her life, a detail that he hadn’t noticed before. “Just… keep quiet about this, for her sake.”

“I…” he hesitated - of course he was going to do as requested, but how was he supposed to respond to that? It wasn’t Hina that needed to be comforted, of course -- but he couldn’t help but feel like he was supposed to say  _ something _ encouraging. He chose not to speak up, though, and simply nodded. “Of course. Your - her secret is safe with me. If I were you guys, though, I’d be… a little more subtle in the future, yeah? Everyone already thinks you guys were dating… and if you wanna keep it a secret…”

Hina interrupted him, though, by throwing her arms around him in a tight hug. Makoto stumbled backwards a little, but didn’t hesitate to return it with a small, gentle squeeze. The idea to tell everybody that they were right didn’t even cross his mind - the most important thing to him right now, the most important thing to him  _ no matter what, _ was the safety of his friends. He knew that he could keep everything quiet, but the others? Junko was a loudmouth, Hiro was clueless, Hifumi was kind of stupid… probably only Kyoko would also be able to keep it a secret.

He wouldn’t even tell her, though, because he already made the promise.

* * *

 

Towards the end of the fourth week at Hope’s Peak, Sayaka had announced rather out of the blue that they were going to have a movie night. Nobody had really asked for it, and come to think of it, nobody had really agreed to meet up in her room two hours before lights out to watch a movie, but she was a very persuasive person, so now they had fifteen high schoolers crammed into a tiny dorm room around a television that she had smuggled in when they first moved into the dorms and set up their stuff.

He had ended up sitting in the back of the room with Kyoko; the movie was some kind of black and white foreign drama, and neither of them were really interested in it, so they had opted to just watch their classmates together. “I have to say, I was expecting some more interesting things to happen,” Kyoko spoke quietly in his ear, and she moved to sit in a lotus position. “With everyone so close together, you’d think there would be at least a couple fights, but even the twins are being quiet right now.”

“That might be because Toko is sitting in between them.” Makoto shrugged, and looked over at her. She turned her head to look at him shortly thereafter, an eyebrow raised. “They get along better when they’re around her. Dunno why. She seems to drive everyone else to clash.”

Kyoko let out a small, gentle laugh, and Makoto could feel himself blush ever so slightly before he looked to the screen for the first time that evening. A few quiet moments passed between them, before Kyoko’s head leaned over to rest on his shoulder - Makoto froze up ever so slightly, but tried to relax to make sure that she was at least a little comfortable.

“I think I like you, Makoto,” Kyoko spoke up, her voice a little bit quiet - she was hardly a loud person, but he wasn’t used to hearing her sound… shy. It almost threw him off of the words she spoke, but not quite - his face turned bright pink as he looked back to her.

“I think I like you, too,” he stammered out, and was a little bit startled when she lifted her head ever so slightly in order to press her lips against his.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toko has a cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a reminder that i'm currently playing sdr2 (just got to the first investigation) so i don't know everything about these two characters, although i do acknowledge that there will be more content relating to junko and toko so some details may be incorrect or missing!

The constant switching was annoying at first, but Toko and Syo could live with it. She came to realize pretty early on into the cold that there wasn’t anything she could do to prevent the ceaseless sneezing, so instead of trying to resist it and keep each other down, the two personalities had taken to writing on a notepad to communicate - explaining what each other had missed, because the both of them knew that letting their classmates in on the secret that the shy writer shared a body with a murderer  _ probably _ wouldn’t end well. There was no way that the other teenagers would be even a little accepting of it, and odds were that the police would be called.

A day or two into their cold, though, they came to realize that their system absolutely wasn’t working. People weren’t buying the excuse that Toko was just feeling forgetful and they were starting to catch onto Syo’s erratic behavior. The only solution, it seemed, was to just hide themselves away in their dorm room and work on their own separate projects for a while - at least until the cold passed. Toko worked on her next romance novel, and Syo doodled away in the notepad. Though it was still annoying, the constant changing between consciousnesses, they at least could live with it.

Communication wasn’t entirely necessary now that there wasn’t much of anything interesting to remember, but the two personalities still spoke to each other with the notepad, getting on somewhat friendly terms with each other where they had normally been content to ignore the fact that the other existed at all. Maybe it was the loneliness, or just interest in getting to know the other girl in their head, but either way they came up with a few different ideas - for children’s picture books, how to handle the rest of the time their body was sick, so many projects they could collaborate on.

Syo was the one fronting when the first knock at the door came. She started a little, biting down on her tongue as she jumped at the sudden noise and letting out a soft yelp of pain. She calmed down for a second, watching the door as if it was going to fly off its hinges and attack her, but spoke up pretty quickly, doing her best impression of Toko’s speaking patterns that she could manage. “I’m still not feeling well, and you should probably leave so you don’t get sick, too.” Fuck, she forgot to stutter. 

“I just wanted to check in and make sure you’re still alive,” Hina’s voice spoke from the other side of the door, and Syo felt herself relaxing a little - the swimmer was kind of stupid, or at least unobservant, and probably wouldn’t notice the difference as long as they still shared the same voice. “I’m glad to hear you talking, at least! Byakuya mentioned that you didn’t bother him this morning, so we were all a little bit worried about you.”

She hesitated a moment. If Byakuya had been the one to notice their absence, why did he not come to try and find her first? She was a little hurt, but supposed that was to be expected. He liked to pretend that he didn’t care about her, even if she was sick. “Yeah, I’m still alive, I’m just a little dizzy so I probably shouldn’t go to class or spend time with anyone or anything like that.” God, she hoped that she was saying the right things. Hina might have been a little clueless, but the rest of their classmates weren’t. “Don’t worry about me. Take some notes in class or something for me, okay?”

“You  _ were _ acting a little weird and disoriented yesterday,” Hina sounded like that explained a lot in her mind, and a moment of silence passed between them before the swimmer spoke up again. “Yeah, I’ll talk to everyone about getting you notes for the classes you’re missing. “Take care of yourself, okay, Toko? Try not to overwork yourself or anything, and come get me if you need anything! I know a thing or two about helping with colds!” Her tone was as bright as ever, and Syo had to fight to not be annoyed by it. More pressing than that, though, was the fact that she could feel a sneeze coming on, and she needed to wrap up this conversation quickly before Toko had to front in the middle of a conversation.

“Yeah, I will. Thanks for checking on me. I’ll talk to you later.” She knew that her words were ever so slightly more warm and polite than her socially reclusive alter’s usually would be, but she couldn’t bring herself to care given how much of a hurry she was in. Syo heard Hina say goodbye, and then she heard some footsteps walking away - she sighed in relief, and sneezed.

* * *

 

Toko was fronting when the second knock at their door came. She was in the middle of typing the final chapter of the rough draft of her novel, and was a little annoyed at being interrupted - which probably showed when she spoke up in a slightly snippish tone. “What is it?” she asked with her voice raised ever so slightly, not looking up from the words appearing on her laptop screen as she typed away. “And make it quick, because I’m a little bit busy right now.”

“I’m just here to drop off your notes,” Junko’s tone on the other side was a little defensive, and Toko didn’t need to see her to know that she was crossing her arms and glaring at the door. The author sighed heavily and rose to her feet, walking over to the door and feeling a little dizzy at moving for the first time all day combined with the headache from frequent switching between personalities all day. She walked quietly over to the dorm room door and opened it just enough to see Junko and hopefully grab the papers from her, say goodbye, and send her on her way.

Before she could do anything to stop her, though, Junko had pushed through into the room and shoved her to the side in order to enter. Toko blinked a little, confused and not entirely sure how to process the fact that the ultimate fashionista was now standing in her bedroom with her arms crossed over her chest. “Close the door, none of this needs to be overheard,” she demanded, and Toko complied without really thinking about it, using her foot to kick the door back into a closed position. “I do actually have your notes, but I seriously need to talk to you about something. I’ve noticed the changes in how you talk and act every few minutes. You have another personality, don’t you? And the change between the two of you is triggered by sneezing or passing out or whatever.”

She was stunned - and she didn’t know how she was supposed to reply to such an accurate observation from somebody who had, up until now, just given off the impression of being a drama queen with all the brains and personality of a dishcloth. Toko’s mouth opened and closed for a few seconds like she was a fish, and when she finally found the words to speak, all the could say was a simple question - “How did you know?”

There was no point in trying to deny it, especially because Junko could always just hide out in her room and wait for Syo to front in again, and then she would have her proof without either of them needing to confirm it. Toko wasn’t stupid - she knew how different she was from her personality, and how the sudden change between them would probably be easy to spot for somebody who knew what she was looking for. The question remained, though, of  _ how _ she knew what to look for.

Mercifully, the other girl gave her an answer without much waiting. “Because I’ve got dissociative identity disorder, too. It’s a little bit of a different form, since I feel like the personalities are still mine and I just hear voices - but I know that some cases, I guess like yours, result in two entirely different identities forming.” Her words were more official and intelligent than Toko was accustomed to hearing from her, so she assumed that she was reciting something memorized from WebMD.  _ That _ was closer to the Junko that she had come to know.

Toko hesitated for a little while. She didn’t know how she was supposed to reply to that, but after a few seconds she realized that she wasn’t going to be able to just ignore her classmate forever. “You’re, uh, right. The other girl is named Syo. She’s like me but a lot more… intense… and less shy… actually, we’re complete opposites.” She cleared her throat slightly, shifting uncomfortably to one foot and trying to avoid looking at Junko. “We’ve been holed up in this room because the constant sneezing is making us keep switching and it’s pretty disorienting.” A horrible thought passed through her head, though, and her eyes widened as she snapped her head to look at the fashionista. “You haven’t told anybody, right?”

“Well, Mukuro knows, but that’s only because she’s been dealing with my shit for most of our lives, so she knows what to look for. I’m not going to tell anybody, though. I know this wouldn’t be… easy to explain to just about anybody.” Junko leaned against her desk, glancing down at the notebook of doodles and laptop that sat side by side on the surface. “I’m curious, though. Do you two have any way of communicating with each other? Does Syo hear this conversation going on right now, or will she remember that I know this, or anything like that?”

“No. We don’t share memories, and only one of us is able to front at a time.” She ran a hand through her long hair, letting out a heavy sigh. “We can’t communicate in our head, necessarily, but I can write a note for her so that she knows that we talked and she knows what you said. Or maybe I’ll sneeze in the middle of this conversation and you can explain it to her yourself.”

Junko let out a laugh at that, and stopped leaning against the desk in order to stand up straight and start walking towards the door. “Sounds like a little bit too much to deal with. The note should be able to work.” She tossed a binder full of papers onto Toko’s bed, before opening the door to the dorm and glancing back at her one more time. “There are your notes and assignments to get done before you’re better. If you need anything, you know where my room is, right? It’s right across the hall.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll keep that in mind, but I think we have this down for now.” She felt a little bit awkward just having someone treat her nicely, let alone someone that kind of treated other people like they were lesser than her. Just as Junko was beginning to shut the door, she thought to blurt out a quick “thank you,” and the fashionista turned around a little and opened the door back up.

“You’re welcome,” the other girl responded nonchalantly, giving Toko a brief peace sign before she finally completely exited and let the door close behind her.

The author was left staring at the closed door and listen to the sound of Junko’s heels walking away from her room. She didn’t know how to process the conversation that had just happened - how to deal with the knowledge that somebody in this private school with a small pool of students to choose from had the same mental illness with her, albeit with a little bit of a different experience. For the first time in a while, she felt like there was someone around that she could kind of trust - even Byakuya she was a little bit wary of.

She sucked in a little breath, and went to grab her notebook and pen to leave a note for Syo.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to comment if you want!


End file.
